You know spring is on its way when beautiful delicate blossoms begin to appear on bare branches of cherry and plum trees. I love the simplicity of these small flowers - five simple petals is all you need to welcome in Spring.

Use this as a pincushion and add some colourful pins to the centre - they will look just like the stamen of the real blossoms! Or use it as a trinket tray to hold jewellery, stitch markers or small pins and clips - anything goes!

The Blossom Pincushion is made in three parts - the Raised Centre, the Petals and the Leaf Base. These are then sewn together around the middle, with small stitches all around to hold everything in place. The petals can also be decorated with extra embroidery or left plain.

The instructions are written in US or UK crochet terms. There are step-by-step photos detailing how to make the pieces and finish the pincushion. There are also charts for the petals and leaf base.

When made with Aran/Heavy DK weight cotton yarn (sample yarn is 90m per 50gr) and 3.5mm hook the finished pincushion will measure about 12cm/5in wide. Use a finer yarn for a smaller project or size up to make a big blossom.

This is a quick project that takes about 2hrs or less to complete!

You’ll need to know how to:

・make a Magic Ring
・work in a round
・work in rows
・single crochet (UK double crochet)
・increase/decrease
・chain stitch
・slip stitch
・half double crochet (UK half treble crochet)
・double crochet (UK treble crochet)
・treble crochet (UK double treble crochet)
・work over a chain

The cotton samples are made in
Hobbii x PicaPau Cotton 8/7 (100% Cotton, 50g, 90m/98yds), each Pincushion uses around 5gr of yarn for the centre, 20g for petals and 15g for leaf base - mix and match colours as you like to create different flowers!

For the fluffy version I used 3 strands of lace weight mohair for the petals and held 1 strand of cotton with 1 strand of mohair for the centre.

You will also need a little toy stuffing, a stitch marker, a tapestry needle and scissors.